“Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.”

My sentiments entirely. I recently applied to Motability (a charitable organisation) for financial assistance with a wheelchair hoist for my car (my new chair is heavier than the previous and my PAs are having problems lifting and storing it in the back of the car).

A couple of weeks later I received a telephone call informing me that my application was not successful. When I queried this outcome I was told there was nothing I could do, the decision is final.

I could understand it if I was earning a massive salary (I’m a part-time worker on tax credits); or if I’d bundles of savings (I’ve a couple of thousand saved).

Once again the actions of a charity proving that without full and open accountability these organisations pick and chose worthy recipients of their largesse. Unlike government benefits and schemes that have a properly set down criteria for entitlement and appeals procedures, Motability does not.

Charitable giving by the rich is an avoidance of government allocation in regard to distribuition. If it’s available to the rich (in the absence of them paying their fair share of tax) I’d like it available to everyone. I’d give more to societal needs and less to the sustainment of Trident, for example.

Ross, you’ve hit the nail on the head! There are many charities out there that really just ain’t.
A good example of this is MIND. The original idea is great, help to re-habilitate the mentally unwell back into society and work. So why do you have to pay an annual subscription to head office in order to set up a branch? Doesn’t this sound like a franchise…?
In my time working there what I saw was frankly disgusting, the people where treated with little consideration, and were used as unpaid labour to make things for their shop(in Downham Market). What a great business model! Staff that MIND were actually paid by Social Services to look after, making stuff that you sell. This is better than Nike!
I ‘failed’ my work trial, and was paid for 2.5 weeks that I didn’t work. I think it’s called ‘hush money’, didn’t work tho’…

I’m off to run a course for MIND ( one of the Somerset branches) today as part of the NHS funded programme for people who have had treatment and now need to resume charge of their own lives. I am brought in run the occasional course so I am not part of their organisation and i can confirm Richard’s point about the good work they do.
I’m sorry Peter, you had such a bad experience and hope things work out for you.

Hi
First and foremost I’d like to apologise on behalf of West Norfolk Mind for what sounds like a very difficult experience. I wasn’t in post when the incident took place but would be happy to meet to discuss this further
Eddie West-Burnham
Chief Executive
West Norfolk Mind
01553 776966

JP, it is available to everyone actually. All charitable donations are tax-free, so in effect anyone – whatever their income level – who donates to charity is choosing how that portion of their taxes will be spent. The issue with the very rich is that they need a far smaller portion of their income to live on so can give away much more of it, and therefore the effect of tax relief on their donations can be to reduce their effective tax burden to near-zero. But anyone can use charitable donations to decide how some of their taxes are spent – it is not a privilege of the very rich.

I`m getting confused. I thought the system was that the charity concerned could claim back the tax paid on your donation,at your marginal rate I think? Does this no longer apply?
It certainly seemed a good idea for both parties.

You are still pursuing this line of sophistry. The donor is deemed to be making a net payment to the charity – and you can bet your bottom dollar that a multi-millionaire knows that. They give accordingly.

The end result is no different to that of a basic rate taxpayer making a donation, viz. the income used to make the donation is not taxed.

This guff about a cash repayment is a red herring (though admittedly a mighty effective one when told to people who know very little about tax).

Most donations are made net of basic rate tax – the donor makes a payment and the charity claims an additional 20% from HMRC. This is how Gift Aid works. If a higher rate taxpayer makes a donation through gift aid, the charity still only gets 20%. As I understand it, if the higher rate taxpayer then declares that donation on his tax return he receives tax relief at his highest rate, presumably – do correct me if I’ve got this wrong – after deduction of the 20% the charity has claimed. This reduces the higher-rate tax which would be due on submission of the tax return, but it would only be a refund if the result was to reduce his liability to less than payments already made. However, it is an anomaly that I think needs to be sorted out.

Richard, I agree with you that most donors wouldn’t think about the tax effect. But I think very rich ones might, simply because the effect is so enormous and they are more used to considering tax effects anyway.

JP, you have two choices. You can either have a VERY large income and pay nearly all of it to charity, in which case the effective tax rate on your whole income will be well below 10% even though you are paying top rate tax and NI on the bit you retain to live on. Or you can earn below the NI threshold, in which case your effective tax rate will be at most zero and probably negative because you will of course be claiming benefits. What you DON’T want to do is have an average income.

Ian, keep up the good work! I’m not saying every branch of MIND is as bad as my local one, I’m sure many branches are far more honest than my local one was/is.
Still not impressed with the franchise side of things though… Frankly, I believe that the originators of MIND were nothing more than money-grubbing opportunists, exploiting the gaping hole in health care created by ‘care in the community’.
Don’t get me started on Govt backing off from it’s responsibilities….

You have twisted the nuisances of the tax system to make a highly disingenuous statement claiming rich people are advantaged. The point of gift aid, is not to reduce a person’s tax bill – but to allow people to give money out of their gross income tax free. It doesn’t matter whether you pay tax at 20%, 40% or 50% – under the current rules everyone can donate out of their gross income tax free.

And I suspect the overwhelming majority of higher rate tax payers know they can get additional tax relief as they have filled in their Returns before, they certainly provide me with all their donations. I would like to see the HMRC research which says people don’t think about tthe tax effect please. As for the super rich, they know damn well about tax relief, otherwise how do you think they get their rates down to allegedly 10%.

I completely disagree. This tax relief is about the granting of power to the wealthy, and nothing less. Even FT commentators agree this morning. You are wrong, and it does not become you to make such a disingenuous argument in support of the maintenance of the systems of power that require charity to relieve the poverty of so many in this country.